Skirmish at the Pit of Carkoon
Journey to the pit of Carkoon On the journey Leia rode in Jabba's sail barge while her friends rode on a skiff outside. Whilst looking out the window at her friends, Leia was interrupted by Jabba, who tugged on her leash and then invited her to join him: "Return, my lovely princess," he purred in Huttese. Leia turned back to glare at him and then carried on looking out the window, amusing the Hutt and increasing his lust. He drooled as he gazed at backside and curves. His mighty tail throbbed in anticipation. He was going to relish taking pleasure from her after her friends had been executed. Once she saw her friends disappear forever in the Sarlacc's maw, her spirit would be completely broken. That very night, as the Sarlacc digested her friends and sent up their anguished cries into the Tatoinne night, Jabba would take her into his private chamber on the barge, to ravish her repeatedly in triumph. He slobbered at the thought of his complete possession of the princess, then drank from his goblet to ease his lust somewhat. For now he must teach her simpler obedience. Using his tremendous mass, he pulled harder on her leash than Leia could resist, forcing the struggling, scantily-clad princess to run back to him. Letting go of the chain, Jabba grasped Leia's arm firmly and leered at her: "Don't stay too far my lovely. After the excitement outside ends, you will soon learn to appreciate me." He then forced her to drink from his goblet and sit on his tail until they reached the pit. When they did Leia and Jabba stood next to each other on the sail barge observation deck. The Battle at the Sarlacc Pit Before the Battle Unbeknowst to all of Jabba's men except Boba Fett, R2-D2 had left his station in the barge's main cabin and had gone up tothe main deck to await a secret signal from Luke. After the guard had moved Luke forward onto the plank, Luke gave a salute seemingly to the barge but really to the droid. Jabba spat his order to the guard: "Put him in!" As the Weequay behind him prodded him with his vibro-ax, Luke spun around and jumped off the plank at the same time. Catching the plank with his hands, he propelled himself up and over the guard as Artoo shot him his new green lightsaber from the barge. Grabbing and igniting it, he began to fight Jabba's men, while Lando too revealed his true identity by attacking one of the guards on the skiff The Battle Begins: The Death of Boba Fett When he saw Luke slaying his guards and knocking them into the Sarlacc, Jabba become apoplectic with anger. Keeping a strong grip on Leia's chain, he ordered his men to begin attacking the Jedi and the skiff he was on. A Gamorrean guard running off to do Jabba's bidding knocked C-3P0 to the ground in his hurry to obey his master. Leia, for her part, immediately rejoiced at Luke's success but then hid her excitement, not wanting to infuriate Jabba or draw his attention. Instead, she watched him carefully out of the corner of her eye, waiting for the right moment to strike. Meanwhile, Boba Fett, who had noticed R2-D2 leaving his post and ascend to the deck of the sail barge, was already on top, having arrived too late to prevent the droid for sending Luke's lightsaber to him. The bounty hunter flew at the skiff and engaged the Jedi. Although he briefly ensnared Luke in a fibrro-cord, his blaster was sliced in half and he was knocked to the ground. As Luke leapt to the other skiff, Boba again tried to fire at him, but his jet pack was accidently hit by a lucky blow from Solo, and the reaction sent Boba tumbling into the sand and falling into the Sarlacc. The Battle Continues Inside: Jabba is Slain by Leia The demise of Boba Fett, one of the greatest bounty hunters the galaxy had ever known, sent the interior of the Sail Barge into a frenzy. Jabba furiously yelled into his intercom, trying regroup his men, most of whom were filled with fear at the awesome onslaught of the Jedi. Some began to seek escape from the barge, including Bib Fortuna, Jabba's majordomo. It was at the height of this chaos that Leia acted. She ducked in front of Jabba, who had neglected her in his fury, and grabbed the the communicator right from his clammy grasp. Before he could react she was bashing it repeatedly into his control panel, sending up a shower of sparks. Raising his arms to shield himself from the flying electricity, Jabba lost his controlling grip on her chain. As the control panel shorted out, the shutters on all the windows in the cabin slammed shut, plunging the barge into darkness and even more confusion. Now Jabba's men began to flee in earnest, cowardly abandoning their Hutt master. Jabba attempted to grab his rebellious slave girl while cursing at her in Huttese. However, Leia scampered away, eluding his grasp and leaping over his thrashing tail. While Jabba trumpeted in frustration and searched for her leash, the feisty slave was already gathering it up in her hands for her next move, as she knelt behind him, sensing his panic. Just as Jabba was about to call for assistance, Leia threw the chain over his bulbous head and around his neck. As soon as the Hutt saw the chain fly before his eyes he raised his hands to his throat, knowing what Leia was attempting. In fact, he just managed to get the tips of his fingers on the leash. But the lithe princess, too quick for the massive Hutt, immediately pulled back on the chain violently as she planted her foot in his fleshy backside for leverage. Jabba yelped as his right hand lost its fragile grip on the chain, which began to dig underneath his jaw. He pawed at the leash but it was stuck in the fatty folds of his throat and his thick fingers could not get a purchase on it. Meanwhile, his left hand was all that kept the chain from cutting off his breathing completely. Sensing this, the rebel princess leapt back a bit from the Hutt, attempting to cinch the chain completely taut with the force of her momentum. Beginning to choke and sputter, Jabba called out for help to no avail. His left hand still barely keeping the chain away from that side of his neck, he rocked forward while reaching back with his right hand, trying to grab onto the princess. Leia was momentarily caught off guard by this unexpected maneuver and felt Jabba's scaley skin brush against her shoulder and chest as he yanked her forward. Groaning in abhorrence, she immediately recovered and pulled herself up closer to him, away from the reach of his stubby arm. Replanting her foot against his back, she hauled on the chain with renewed fierceness. Sensing this, Jabba tried a new tactic by lurching forward, attempting to overpower her with his shear mass. But he couldn't get enough leverage to slide off the throne; his bulk was too unwieldy and she had caught him in an unfavorable position against the back of his throne. As he continued to struggle unsuccessfully against the tightening chain, his reptilian eyes began to bulge, his pupils widening from the strain. Although a Hutt's lungs are huge and can hold a great amount reserve air, the size of their bulk also demands a lot of oxygen--and Jabba's desperate struggles only depleted his store faster. Meanwhile, his frantic twisting caused his left hand to lose bit-by-bit its grip on the leash, which was digging slowly but relentlessly deeper and deeper into his windpipe. Very soon he lost the ability to call for help, his usually booming voice reduced to a series of gasps and gurgles as his oily tongue began to flop from his mouth. His men, hearing his pained cries, were thrown into even more fear and continued to run out of the cabin. In the darkness, they could not tell that it was the enslaved princess that was strangling their master. All they knew was that someone was killing their lord and that they wished to avoid the same fate. Leia, for her part, was surprised at how she was able to hold on to the chain despite the heavings of Jabba's tremendous mass, which threatened to break her fingers and tear her arms from her sockets. Reaching deep inside herself and a power she had not fully known but always intimately sensed--her connection to the Force--she closed out the pain she felt and focused all her life-force into paying back Jabba for the degradation and molestation he had subjected her to.Moving her hands up the chain, she knelt even closer to the struggling Hutt and increased the force with which she strangled him, feeling the sweat and mucus from his hide splash onto her skin as he tried in vain to cast her off of him. She relished the irony of the situation--strangling her captor with the very chain with which he had kept her captive--and remembered all the times Jabba had tugged and yanked the chain, bending her to his will. Now, drawing it taut against his throat and hearing his agonized cries, she unleashed all the loathing she felt for her Hutt master. Feeling his strength beginning to fade, Jabba tensed every muscle in his mighty tail, bracing it against his throne. Suddenly he lurched powerfully forward, trying to catch his slave off-guard. But Leia was ready. Riding the recoil she maintained her grip on the chain, which only dug further into Jabba's neck as he propelled himself away from the throne. She then responded to his gamble, using her weight and her feet planted against his hide to draw his head violently backwards again. Jabba released a tortured scream as Leia denied him the life-giving air he sought, dominated by the plucky slave princess whose strength and fierceness he had severely underestimated. His right hand continued to clutch weakly at the leash, as Leia kept up the unrelenting pressure. Soon his left hand too lost its tenuous grip on the chain. Unobstructed now, the slave leash completely closed off his air and forced his tongue to protrude its full length from his gaping mouth. The Hutt's massive heart shuddered as blood pounded in his head. His eyes began to close and lose their orange glow as his life force evaporated. He could no longer see. His hands gave up their struggle with the chain and fell limply to his giant belly, which was caked with the drool that poured from his panting mouth. Leia smiled ruefully as she saw the Exalted Hutt's struggles begin to die. The sight of his half-closed eyes and scum-covered tongue hanging from his slobbering mouth made her lick her own lips in blood-thirsty determination. She could hear his powerful tail slam repeatedly up and down on the throne in its death throes, which grew faster and faster. Closing her eyes now and gritting her teeth the princess hauled on the chain even harder than before, to Jabba's great dismay. As the last sparks of life fired through his nerves and muscles, his vast, superior Hutt mind lost all coherence, but only after one last thought ran through it: she, a supposedly weak human female, a slave girl, not a bounty hunter or a Jedi, had slain him, one of the most powerful Hutts in history. He remembered when he had captured her, and realized that she had been right about making him regret her enslavement. It was this realization of the indignity of his fate that he carried with him into the void. Leia's pained efforts were finally rewarded as Jabba slumped forward, deadweight. His oily tongue, with which he had licked and molested her, dangled from his mouth, which emitted the loudest of death rattles as black slime leaked from its corners. The eyes that had leered upon her form slowly closed in the sleep of death, deprived of all light. His mighty tail--with which he had intended to ravish her and teach her to appreciate him--spasmed once, twice, and then lay still. The Great Jabba the Hutt was dead. The Battle Concludes: Leia Reunites with her Friends Leia kept the chain taut around Jabba's throat for several seconds, not believing he was dead. When she saw that his tail had stopped twitching completely, she gave a last sigh of hatred towards him, turned, and leapt off the throne. Jabba's men continued to run through the room periodically as the battle raged outside. Not wanting to be discovered, Leia hid behind the huge carcass of her dead master and saw about trying to free herself from her bondage. Seeing a discarded laser pistol a few feet away she tried to grab it, but fell short. Luckily, R2D2 arrived and shocked her chain, breaking it into two pieces and finally fleeing Leia. Making her way up on deck, Leia killed a cannon gunner who was attacking the rebels' skiff using an axe, then at Luke's order used the cannon to destory the Sail Barge's engines. She and Luke escaped and fled with the rest of the rebels as Jabba's remians were consumed in a fiery explosion.